Snareville II: Circles by David Youngquist Page A

haven’t had contact with them in three years.”
    Pepper slid the map over to her. She sat on the edge of one of the chairs. Cindy looked over her shoulder. Cindy was part of the group that would go with, as was the rest of my platoon, but the women didn’t want to send me out without knowing what I was going to be driving through.
    “What about state roads?” Cindy asked. Pepper traced her finger over a smaller line on the map. “There’s some state roads you can hop to go into Galesburg. They pass through some smaller towns, but it’s a pretty direct route. You just have to bypass Kewanee.”
    I looked over Pep’s shoulder. Sure enough, one state highway after another wound its way through the countryside. A turn here, a jog there and there you were, cruising into Galesburg.
    Kenny leaned over the table. A bead of sweat dripped onto the edge of the map. “That might well work,” he said. “Might be the best bet. Less likely to run into any road warriors and if you find some survivors in little towns along the way, make some contact. We might be able to add them to the Alliance. Or if there’s not enough in a given town, bring them back with you to Princeton or Henry.”
    We nodded around the table as we laid out the route. It sounded like the plan would work.
    I e-mailed my brother Tom about our trip. We had a few tanks and artillery pieces laagered here in Snareville. He had a lot more up at the arsenal with him. We didn’t plan on taking the Bradleys or the Abrams. The heavy metal wouldn’t be able to keep up with the trucks. What we were planning to take were the semis and our HumVees. Tom sent a tanker truck of diesel for all our rigs. He also told us to let him know when we left so he could have air support online if we needed it. We now had a small air force stationed at the Quad Cities airport to supplement his squadron of helicopters stationed on the Arsenal. No commercial flights yet, but it was good to know that the fighter jocks were a phone call away.
    “I am so ready to be done being pregnant with this child,” Pepper groaned. “This one is beating Mommy up worse than Mikey did.” A bulge swelled from the side of the belly. It was shaped like a little foot. It always amazed me to see something like that.
    “Come, talk to this child.”
    I crouched beside her in the recliner. Soft words as I rubbed her belly. The child calmed down. I could never explain that. Same thing had happened with Jenny when she was pregnant with Rachel.
    “How long you plannin’ on being gone this time?”
    “Not long,” I said. Cindy came into the room. “Couple of days at the most. It’s not a long trip. ’Bout a hundred miles and this time Cindy’s going.”
    “Good. That’ll give us time to get Bill and his family moved across the street without you in the way.”
    “It’ll really seem weird not having them in the house with us,” Cindy said. “They’ve always been here.”
    “Baby boom,” I said. “We’re going to run out of room real quick with four more babies in this family.”
    I helped Pepper to her feet. It was getting late and Cindy and I had to get an early start. We headed for bed.
    “One of these days, we might have to think about stopping having babies, you know, Danny.” Pepper smiled.
    “What, you don’t like being barefoot and pregnant?”
    Cindy elbowed me.
    “I said one of these days, not now.”

Chapter 12
    We rolled out of Snareville as the sun came up. My HumVee was in the lead of a column of twelve vehicles. Cindy sat beside me in the passenger seat, radio between us, antenna whipped in the wind as it flew our flag: blue background with an AR-15 crossed over a cavalry saber. Wally sat behind me, Cherry on the other side, Jinks in the middle to man the M-60. The pig was loaded up with belts of ammo, spare cans stowed.
    Behind my rig were Bill and Heather with their crew. There were HumVees behind, four semi trucks, followed by four more hummers. We made an impressive